Study predicts disappearance of religion in nine countries

A scientific study of census data from nine countries shows
a steep rise in the number of people claiming no religious
affiliation, and predicts that the trend could continue until
religion entirely dies out.

The team behind the
research (.pdf), from Northwestern University and the
University of Tucson, applied a mathematical model to the data to
try and explain the relationship between the number of religious
respondents and the social motives behind being one. The results
point towards the eventual extinction of religious affiliation in
all countries studied.

The countried studied were Australia, Austria, Canada, the Czech
Republic, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand and
Switzerland -- chosen because they're among the few whose censuses
query religious affiliation, and have for some time. The data
analysed went back as far as a century.

The study revolved around nonlinear
dynamics -- a mathematical term referring to the dynamics of a
system whose output isn't directly proportional to its input. What
that means in terms of this study is that the number of factors
play a part in the number of people who refer to themselves as
non-religious, and there are feedback effects to contend with as
well.

The theory, as explained by study co-author Richard Wiener, is
that "social groups that have more members are going to be more
attractive to join". Essentially, social groups have a kind of
"gravity" that drags in more people the bigger they are. We see the
same principle on the web when it comes to the growth of social networking sites, and also in the decline of
lesser-spoken languages.

In that latter example, the languages "compete" against each
other -- the value of speaking one diminishes rapidly as the number
of people you can communicate with using it shrinks. In the same
way, the researchers found that being religious and being
non-religious compete with each other -- as social groups with more
members become more attractive to join.

Of course, that's not the only reason behind the growth of the
non-religious group. Other factors apply, and the model treats each
person as being influenced equally by all members of society --
which Weiner admits isn't a terribly realistic assumption to make.
However, he says, "It's interesting that a fairly simple model
captures the data, and if those simple ideas are correct, it suggests where
this might be going. Obviously much more complicated things are
going on with any one individual, but maybe a lot of that averages
out."

The paper, which
was reported at the American Physical Society meeting in Dallas,
Texas, says that eventually, "the perceived utility of religious
non-affiliation is greater than that of adhering to a religion, and
therefore predicts continued growth of non-affliation, tending
toward the disappearance of religion."

That's not the only social group you can apply the team's model
to, either. The paper adds: "Some other competitive social systems
in which identical or very similar models may apply include, for
example, smoker vs. non-smoker, vegetarian vs. meat-eater, obese
vs. non-obese, and Mac user vs. PC user.

"We believe that, with the application of techniques from the
mathematics of dynamical systems and perturbation theory, we have
gained a deeper understanding of how various assumptions about
human behavior will play out in the real world."

Edited by Olivia Solon

Comments

it's about time in the history that an increasing number people wake up from their religious coma and realise there is no omnipotenet supernatural deity out there randomly running their lives. it's disappointing how weak minded the human species is, so many people still have the psychological need to believe in "something out there" and do not have the ability to question their need for a supernatural belief system.the demise of religious can only mean good as the most powerful control tool (indoctrination) so cleverly used by greedy capitalists will finally be removed from the human psyche and finally more humans can begin to practice critical thinking and take ultimate responsibility for their own actions and reactions.

M

Mar 22nd 2011

In reply to M

troll!If only everyone in the world believed the same as me the world would be a better place...blah blah blah

Jimmy Bike

Mar 24th 2011

Thank god!!!!

Ed

Mar 23rd 2011

I have read the study. It is basically a maths paper (I have degrees in mathematics and statistics). The key flawed assumption is that the so-called utility of religious affiliation is exactly the same for all citizens in a given country, regardless of whether they are frequent religious attenders, people who hardly ever go, or atheists. This is clearly untrue. They also assume the utility will remain constant forever and even if there are different social networks (e.g. regions) they assume the same utility anyway. In New Zealand the drop in census religion is mostly among people who weren't particularly religious anyway (low utility) while the core attenders (high utility) have kept going. So although census numbers have dropped, attendances are rising for some churches including some mainstream congregations. I think the census religion numbers will not go to extinction but eventually bottom out and even start to grow again.

If this is trure then surely this has wide reaching implications not least for the hollywood religious epics. Somehow 'The Base 10 Commandments' doesn't quite have the same ring as the original and as for the line 'He's not the Messiah he's a very naughty Mathematician' well I'm not laughing!

John

Mar 23rd 2011

This study is a joke. I also have a statistics background... It's a fatal mistake to extrapolate data beyond its range. People today are moving away from religion, but religious zeal often swings like a pendulum. The truth of the matter is that religion is a very contagious meme. If one person gets it, many can get it, and it can spread like wildfire. Atheist pockets can be tinderboxes for the right meme.

Carl

Mar 24th 2011

I seem to remember that there was a time when many people didn't believe that God was going to send a worldwide flood over all the earth, religion was having a bit of an ebb tide just then I feel, but the flood did happen and hundreds maybe thousands were wiped out, except those who believed in God. (Noah and his sons and daughters). But can I also qualify here and say that I think it would be good if all religions died this minute and true faith in the living God became rampant everywhere because our only hope of salvation lies in the shed blood of Jesus Christ the saviour of the world, not in man made religious fiction.

Ted Bury

Mar 25th 2011

People should take a bit longer look at the connecting points of different religions and religious traditions instead of just raving against or for them. One point to start is to look at what is the connection between blindly obeying organized religious dogma and flat-out denial of all religious/spiritual/philosophical understanding...